India - For a bunch of Mother’s Heart inmates, Valentine’s Day meant a day out with heart-shaped pink balloons and roses. The puppies and kittens purred and licked their limbs as visitors at Forum, on Elgin Road, stopped by at the lobby to look at them.

The animals were up for adoption. The event also kicked off an awareness-cum-fundraiser campaign, supported by Wiccan Brigade and AMRI Hospitals. (more…)

The night wind pushes Don Larsen’s green robe against his lanky frame. A circle of torches lights his face.

“The old gods are standing near!” calls a retired Army intelligence officer.

“To watch the turning of the year!” replies the wife of a soldier wounded in Iraq.

“What night is this?” calls a former fighter pilot.

“It is the night of Imbolc,” responds Larsen, a former Army chaplain.

Of the 16 self-described witches who have gathered on this Texas plain to celebrate a late-winter pagan festival with dancing, chanting, chili and beer, all but two are current or former military personnel. Each has a story. None can compete with Larsen’s. (more…)

Sioux Falls, SD - An inmate serving life in prison for a torture murder that sent two co-defendants to death row wants a federal judge to approve a toy sword and other items and privileges for the practice of an ancient European religion.

Darrell Hoadley, of Lead, who was convicted of murder for his part in the 2000 slaying of Chester Allan Poage near Spearfish, filed the handwritten complaint in U.S. District Court. He lists himself in court documents as counsel elder of the Asatru religious group. (more…)

Belchertown, MA - In 1972, carpenter, farmer, poet and political activist Eric L. Walgren, known at the time as “Eric the Rat,” transferred ownership of his house at 140 Gulf Road here to the Universal Life Church of Belchertown, a pagan church he had founded two years earlier.

Religion or tax dodge? (more…)

Judge Elena Simionescu was accused of being a witch and of creating an atmosphere of conflict during her term as a president of the court in Vatra Dornei, a small town in eastern Romania.

She was alleged to have performed rituals involving splashing water, mud and “other liquids”, as well as salt and pepper, on fellow judges’ desks in what some saw as an attempt to bewitch them. The case raises unsettling questions about the outlook of some within the judicial system of one of the newest members of the European Union. (more…)

Greece - Excavation work at a site in a northern Athens suburb, where sections of an ancient Greek theater were discovered on Thursday, should prove whether the structure is the fabled ancient theater of Acharnae, archaeologists said yesterday.

Modern Menidi, where the remains of the 4th century BC theater were found by construction workers, is believed to have been built upon the ancient village of Acharnae, the largest of a string of settlements outside Athens, according to chief excavator Maria Platonos-Yiota. (more…)

Siem Reap , Cambodia — Built by a mighty ninth -century Khmer king, the soaring temple of Phnom Bakheng stands atop the highest peak of ancient Angkor. With a sweeping view that takes in Angkor Wat — the world’s largest religious structure — the monks stationed here were probably among the first to glimpse the approaching Siamese troops who snuffed out this city’s centuries-long domination of much of Southeast Asia.

So perhaps it is not surprising that more than 500 years later, Phnom Bakheng has become the ideal perch from which to watch another assault on Angkor — by marauding armies of tourists. (more…)

A model and student with a penchant for Kentucky Fried Chicken and paganism is a contender in a top lads’ mag competition.

Jaedyn Taylor, 22, of Huntington, York, has made it into Maxim’s Little Black Book for the second year running. (more…)

Dover, DE - A Superior Court judge has upheld a religious discrimination finding that requires Boscov’s to pay a $5,000 fine and $21,000 to two Christians, two Wiccans and a pagan.

In May, the state Human Relations Commission found that the Reading, Pa.-based department store chain caved in to pressure from church people and illegally dropped classes the complainants planned to teach in October 2005 at the Campus of Classes at the Dover store. (more…)

Iowa - The cramped used bookstore off Main Street in Cedar Falls is not just home to shelves of old novels and magazines (and probably a mass gathering of rats behind the walls), but also to Ishtar’s Tarot Reading.

The man who runs the store is not actually called Ishtar, but I guess Bob just doesn’t sound as otherworldly and mythical. (more…)